Monday May 14, 2012 5:11 am

Weekend Reading: The Avengers, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Dave Berg

Now, how many times have you already seen The Avengers? Doesn't it just kick movie butt? And what movie do you think we'll be talking about all summer? Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises?

Avengers Assemble...in line! Former Malibu Comics publisher and co-founder Dave Olbrich (now a manager at Space Goat Productions) and for Malibu Comics Editor-In-Chief Chris Ulm (now the head guy at Appy Entertainment), show up at the :20 mark in this report from AMC theaters in southern California.

Longbox Graveyard goes Marathoning and Assembling for Avengers and other Marvel-based movies. “Five of my favorite superhero movies, in a day-long sitting, followed by a midnight debut of The Avengers! Seventeen hours in a movie theater, ninety minutes in the car each way getting there, a day off work to do it and another day off to recover. Great for a twelve-year-old, not-so-great if you’re half a century old. So I found a couple twelve-year-olds and went anyway.”

Tom McLean at Bags And Boards makes an observation about The Avengers movie that I've heard rumbled about on the internets, but not seen anyone sum up so neatly. Here’s his headline: “Avengers' Shows Superheroes No Longer Need Comics.” It bears thinking about.

Chris Sims at Comics Alliance writes about a super-hero comic we should all be reading: Mega Man. The creators are “able to blend the serious drama in with the action and the comedy to create one of the most well-rounded books out there, but more importantly, they followed the one rule that makes an all-ages book great: They never talked down to the audience.”

Elaine Lee, co-creator of Starstruck, writes about a subject she knows very well: Creator-owned comics.

Reading Tom Spurgeon's interview with cartoonist Bernie Mireault makes me think of two things: (1) someone should collect Bernie’s The Jam in one volume for me and (2) his hope that something else should come along to take the place of the Xeric grants is mine as well.

Topless Robot covers The 12 Most Gimmick-y Gimmick Comic Covers of the '90s and I’m proud to say I had a hand in two of them.

Alan Cranis at Bookgasm likes Vertigo’s 99 Crimes and says it’s “highly recommended along with most of this series of graphic crime novels that, like the finer examples of traditional crime fiction, are easily worthy of repeated readings.”

If you only knew Dave Berg from his MAD Magazine work, Two-Fisted Tales of True-Life Weird Romance has some of his nifty-looking gag cartoons.

This interview with Stan Lee by Alex Pappademas does a great job talking about Stan’s legacy and laying out his history.

Is self-publishing really out of control? Here’s an uncredited view - probably from an internet content mill (are they out of control?) - that seems to boil down to “it’s out of control because I can’t keep track of everything.”

And finally, I love Mark Evanier’s showbiz stories. This one’s about the $20,000 Pyramid. Be sure to follow the link to the Dick Cavett article about his experiences on the show.